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Topic: AR18 Transportation Primary Options (Read 15584 times)

It's time for another of my attempts to get the transportation schedules for Amazing Race 18 into focus. I have used as the timing of each leg the excellent work done by woden in the front of the TIMELINE thread. Here is what I came up with:

Leg 1 11/20 depart LAX for SYD QF12 departed at 2326, but encountered a major problem en route, diverted to Honolulu to land there at 0159 on 10/21 and subsequently in Sydney at 0959 (runway but 1047am leaving airport) 10/22. This had the 8 teams quickest to find the clue in the Palm Springs area playing catchup. It is critical that teams get back into competitive range by getting to the next place (Broken Hill) in time to do a leg and catch the twice-a-week Indian Pacific Railroad.

QF108 departed at 2348 with 3 teams last teams to bring Qantas airplanes to Phil in Palm Springs and arrived 0956 on 11/22

Leg 3 in order to get on the Indian Pacific Railroad, teams must be ready to go by 1830 on 11/23, which implies a record short pit stop This train arrives in Sydney at 1015 on 10/24.Teams must transfer to SYD airport and fly to Tokyo. Choices on 10/24 are:

leg 7 Kolkata to Varanasi 12/2Here is where I deviate from what has been reported by woden, as "Teams seen in departure area of CCU (Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport) on 12/2 at apx 3:10pm ; Jen/LaKisha booking Kingfisher Airlines flight" is not possible on that day. The reason is that the few flights into and out of Varanasi airport are scheduled early in the day. There is no Kingfisher Airlines flight departing Varanasi at that time. The latest flight is 9W2461 CCU VNS dep. 1105 , stopping in Lucknow and arriving Varanasi 1400.

A team at CCU airport at 3pm will be forced to either take a train to get to Varanasi or do a combination of flights through Delhi the next morning.

leg 9 Vienna to Vaduz Liechtenstein to Zermatt 12/6 and 12/7Teams must get to Vienna main rail station for this 713km train journey to Feldkirch across most of east to west Austria:dep. Vienna 0740 arrive Feldkirch 1509From Feldkirch teams will want to take a Swiss postal bus to Vaduz about 30 minutes away

tasks around Liechtenstein

After completion of the major task in Liechtenstein, teams will want to go west and then south to reach Zermatt.

leg 10 Zermatt to Rio de Janeiro dep. 12/9 arr. 12/10This leg starts with an IC train from Zermatt to Zurich flughafen (airport). after every hour a train leaves at 13 minutes after or 39 minutes and gets to the airport at about 3 hours 37 minutes later.

Leg 1 11/20 depart LAX for SYD QF12 departed at 2326, but encountered a major problem en route, landing in Sydney 18 hours late at 0159 on 10/23. This had the 3 teams quickest to find the clue in the Palm Springs area playing serious catchup. I suspect that World Race Productions would have altered the planned schedule in some way to provide some possibility of these teams getting back into competitive range. One way obviously was to have the first leg become a TBC so that teams could get to the next place (Broken Hill) in time to do a leg and catch the twice-a-week Indian Pacific Railroad.

QF108 departed at 2348 with 8 teams and arrived 0956 on 11/22

We know this is not correct.... the flight arrived much closer than that as all teams were seen within an hour or so of each other during the tasks... It is correct that the the first flight, the preferred one, ended up arriving later than the second less desirable flight.

And I can tell you 100% that this leg was a planned TBC...nothing was changed or adjusted due to the flight delay or a favorite team being last.

Logged

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Well now I am all confused......(situation normal). I am going to have to go back and check the sightings thread. I thought that QF12 had 8 teams on it and arrived one hour after QF108 with 3 teams. QF12 had to land in Honolulu to disembark an ill passenger. QF12 should arrived first, but because of the delay, it arrived about one hour later than QF108. Oh well, its not the first time, nor the last time, I have to go a back and check.........cherrio!!

I stand corrected. I had looked at the diversion and assumed that the flight continuation from Honolulu would have to leave on 11/22 (and arrive Sydney 11/23), but it was reported to do this starting in LAX:

Now, anyone who is knowledgeable about the International Date Line knows that you must add a day when you cross it east-to-west, so I adjusted the 0159 Sun.21Nov. to the same time on Nov. 23. I had made an error in taking the scheduled arrival time as the departure time.

According to flightstats.com QF12 left LAX at 22:26 on the 20th. It diverted and landed in Honolulu at 01:59 on the 21st. It then left Honolulu at 03:39 and finally landed in Sydney at 09:59 on the 21st.

So the flights landed within 3 minutes of each other.

Teams definitely left customs more than 3 minutes apart. The leading teams were waiting on the platform for a train for longer than this.

maf was close, but his information on the the date of arrival in SYD appears to be incorrect, as was my original report.

Yep, I missed the date change there. They landed on the 22:nd.

As for the time difference, looking at it in more detail I see that QF108 arrived at the gate at 09:56. In contrast the time they have for QF12, 09:59, is when it touched down on the runway. QF108 took 7 minutes to reach the gate form the runway.

So in the best of worlds we can assume that QF12 arrived at a gate 10 minutes after QF108. But there are many unknowns. There could have been gate trouble (not unlikely since they were late). And the passengers of QF12 probably arrived at immigration just after QF108, which could lead to even more delays.

But in the end we are just nitpicking here. I think we all agree that the flights arrived fairly close but the teams on the second flight got the better deal.

Neobie and you are both unusually reliable sources, but I think you are both mixed up on this. The first plane to depart LAX, QF12, carried the first 3 teams. The later departure, QF108, carried the 8 teams. QF108 with the 8 teams did land before QF12 due to the diversion to Honolulu.

Neobie and you are both unusually reliable sources, but I think you are both mixed up on this. The first plane to depart LAX, QF12, carried the first 3 teams. The later departure, QF108, carried the 8 teams. QF108 with the 8 teams did land before QF12 due to the diversion to Honolulu.

Well we all will certainly see who is correct come this Sunday night.....

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

I am confused now. What is absolutely clear is that QF12 was the first flight scheduled out of LAX and the later to land in Sydney. How could that flight possibly not have the first 3 teams that won the earlier departure time by finding the QANTAS message on paper airplanes first? The 8 teams logically were on the later flight from LAX, which was the earliest to land in Sydney due to the diversion of AF12 to Honolulu. Why is that incorrect?

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

The first 8 teams to find the correct paper airplane got tickets on QF12, the "Winner's Flight." The last 3 teams to find the correct paper airplane got tickets on the "Loser's Flight", QF108. But due to the medical emergency, the "Loser's Flight" and the "Winner's Flight" got reversed. I sure bet that Luke's hand and fingers were exhausted after that flight.

Those of us that were onlline that night, discussed the irony of this happenstance.

It is a little odd that the top 8 not 3 were rewarded the best flight, that is different from the norm, but yes, that is the way it happened.

Logged

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

It is a little odd that the top 8 not 3 were rewarded the best flight, that is different from the norm, but yes, that is the way it happened.

It's more the norm for the history of the race......I remember TAR 5,6,7 did it that way and the flights always got mixed up. In TAR6, teams left Chicago headed for Iceland....the two flights that went east to Boston (I think) and DC got delayed by the hurricane. The last flight connection through Minneapolis, got there first. I think the split in TAR6, was 3/4/3 on the flights......but that was a long time ago too.

I want to examine the speculation by Dr. Rox that World Race Productions chartered 2 flights on Tuesaday 11/23/10 to get teams from Sydney to Broken Hill quickly, necessitated by the Indian Pacific train schedule back from Broken Hill to Sydney. Those flights are:ZL9678 and ZL9596

The numbering system used by Regional Express has only 3-digit numbers for any flights from Sydney, including 2 daily to Broken Hill. If the ultimate destination is Adelaide then a 4-digit flight number beginning with a "4" to Adelaide from a connecting point can happen. If the ultimate destination is Melbourne then a 4-digit flight number beginning with a "3" to Melbourne from a connecting point can happen. There are some 4-digit flight numbers beginning with a "5" elsewhere in the Regional Express system, but no 4-digit flight numbers beginning with a "9". I conclude that Dr. Rox is correct. We should see soon enough.

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Whether they flew Regional Express is not in question (they clearly did). The question is whether they flew charter or regularly scheduled flights. You may have missed Dr. Rox's hypothesis since it is buried somewhere in the ep. 2 thread. It is that they flew charters because those flight numbers were not on the schedule for any other day. My research was to support that hypothesis.

Oh okay! Pretty sure the spoiler guy in Broken Hills at the airport said charter as well.

Logged

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

The How, Where and When TAR racers were leaving Sydney was in no way speculation on my part. The info came from the racers themselves talking to "boots on the ground" @ the Town Square rally point. FT/BE asked one girl about Rex Airlines and Broken Hill and also Jamie/Cara asked another person. Both teams said they were flying there on charter flights the next morning.

You can see all this in:Spec thread about posts #264-312Live Sightings thread about posts #260 to 303Location thread about post 66

What wasnt showing up at the time was confirmation in the different flight data sites people normally check. The flights were first found in the Kingston International Airport flight departure lists, long before they showed up in flightstats.

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan